<****. As if the A-cats are all identical. Hell, you'll be hard pressed to find identical F18's even when only looking at Hobie Tiger F18's. First thing F18 sailors do when buying a Tiger is spend an additional 3000 Euro's on modifying the boat to full F18 competitiveness. With respect to F16's, the bulk of the class is Taipan 4.9 based, a design that has been raced hard for over 15 years now and ample tuning help is available. I'm sure that are differences between the classes in this respect but you make it sound like we are a freak class without history or past development in tuning.
Now I agree that sailing what others are sailing is a good policy, but I don't agree that this is preferable to all cost. I value sailing enjoyment and first in wins with F18's in equal amounts. That is my personal pattern of values but fully normal as well.
I don't mean that there aren't many things that apply to all catamarans (sailboats?), just that one design fleets help all those boats sail closer to their potential. Wouter's view that one design is a thing of the past is not a view shared by many on this forum, but in his defence, many of us like to tinker with our boats, which one design discourages for good reason.
Well, I'm very influenced by the European catamaran scene. One-design is pretty much the much smaller brother to formula racing overhere. Anybody who is anybody sails a formula type boat. (F18, F20, A-cat, Tornado). If you want to develop your skills than you have to sail a formula boat as well, simply because the competition is there and not in any OD fleet. My point, sailing in a OD class is not always best to reach your potential. I can learn alot more in a 30 boat formula fleet than in a 6 boat OD fleet.
I feel that sailors in my own larger area have made a choice; Formula. Especially F18. So my situation dictated a choice between racing in a OD class with 2 others or racing in a much larger F18 fleet. I didn;t want an F18 and so I went for the next best thing. A boat that allows me to singlehand and doublehand and still race first in win in a much larger F18 fleet. Funny thing is that the active FX-one sailors overhere are doing the exact same thing, simply because they don't have the numbers to OD race. My question to those with "different opinions" is : :"what is the advantage of an OD boat when you still race open class against other NON-OD boats ?" My answer to that question was :"None" so we created another open rules class (formula) that suited our wished and needs in a way F18, F20 and A-cats couldn't.
The best advice is to sail each of your choices prior to purchase and make up your own mind.
I fully agree to that. To bad there aren't any Taipans or F16's In Kuwait. But then again there weren;t any FX-one overthere a few years ago as well.
Things do chance sometimes.
One question though, why does F16 always need to be "contexted". I don't see many people doing the same with the other brands ? Surely these have interesting contexts as well ?
Wouter
